lol you're really jumping to conclusions there.
By Hopes' explanation in his Patreon & his DM to me, he had things which really impacted him IRL & his mental health & had to take total break from internet and social media overall.
Now, I'm not here to argue with anyone that the way he went about it was the best (it really wasn't, there's no sugarcoating it).
But I'm also not gonna be wearing that spectacles of suspicion of when he started or not working on the game.
All that would be literally conjecture and is just pointless even giving it a thought.
Having said that, while I won't say anything about "communication was bad because no development
was happening", I can say with certainty you are incorrect with "communication is bad because no development
is happening"
Part of that answer is addressed in the next quoted part further down, but the other part of the answer?
He's aware of the state f95zone thread is in (I mean, the state of the thread was a literal dumpster fire when this site gave it an abandoned tag, with trolls coming out of woodwork lol).
So he's just gonna lay low until people cool their heads (and given the state the thread is still in, I'd say it's for the best).
It's a conscious decision, not because there's no development.
Well, that's the thing.
He did show me snippets of what he has been working on (I thought it was kinda implied when I said "am aware of certain things which I will not disclose" I guess not
).
And before you or anyone say "I won't believe you until you show proof" etc etc, no I won't be showing what he showed me here.
New content sneak peeks that I showed here before, all were done after getting permission from Hopes.
He requested to me this time to not reveal here any sneak peeks he may show me in our DMs, & of course I'm not gonna break that trust.
If that makes people think "Oh this dude isn't showing actual proof to back it up" with a scoff then it is what it is.
Nothing will change my mind about this.